Nick Bourne AM

The Conservative Future had their Christmas Dinner in Aberystwyth this weekend. I was a guest, along with Nick Ramsay, and there was a good attendance of Conservative Future members as well as members of the Ceredigion Association. The Welsh Conservative Group is the strongest political group in Aberystwyth University, and they have entered into a new venture with other political societies to engage in political debate in ‘Senedd’. This strikes me as a very welcome development and provides an opportunity to debate important political issues, not just within the Party but outside, and I think it is a very sensible and fruitful idea.

At the end of the dinner I was presented with a sweatshirt with ‘Leader of the Opposition’ plastered on the back. This was an unexpected gift and I promised to trade it in in the event of the Welsh Conservatives going into government!

Many thanks to Genevieve Isherwood, the Chair of Aber CF (yes a political dynasty is developing) and to Anthony Pickles and Rob McKinnon the two Deputies, as well as all the committee and those members who attended this very successful event.

Apologies to regular readers of my blog for the lack of comments – I have been tackling technical issues since the launch.

I am extremely happy to welcome an open debate on my blog now and encourage you all to post a comment.

The issue of extra powers for the Assembly should be seen as one of the acquisition of proper powers rather than a sterile debate and struggle between opposing viewpoints - a matter of common sense no less. As a nation we have invested heavily in devolution we must now make sure that devolution delivers and to do that we need the tools for the job.  Some clear examples have come up during the life of the Assembly.
 
 Currently the Assembly cannot act to ban three schoolchildren sitting on a seat on school buses designed for two, for example, although it would be a very sensible measure to promote road safety. I haven’t heard anybody dissent from this view following the tragic death of Stuart Cunningham Jones and the campaign for changes in the law led by his parents. But still nothing happens as we don’t have the proper powers!
 
We do not have the proper powers to permit a reduction in council tax for people who take measures to reduce their carbon footprint either. This too is absurd.
 
There are many other things that we should be able to do as an Assembly but cannot. We have already started looking at policy development in this third Assembly. We are looking at ways that we can, in conjunction with manufacturers, environmental groups, local authorities and others, eliminate plastic bags in shops. The watchwords of reduce, reuse and recycle should inform policy in this area and such a move makes sense though clearly there are issues to discuss.
 
In health there are many things that we would like to do to improve Welsh healthcare. To name one important issue - on lifesaving drugs rather than life enhancing drugs  that are awaiting final clearance we need a way of fast tracking their approval for all patients to provide the very latest treatments and to provide them throughout Wales.

On finance a major challenge is how we can lever in more money into the Welsh budget - use of the European Investment Bank, use of bonds and recourse where appropriate to PPP/ PFI are certainly some issues that need to be looked at as a matter of some urgency.
 
 I have felt for some considerable time that politicians should be very much at arm’s length from the commissioning and funding of large public projects. History has a habit of repeating itself. The Senedd building project is one clear example of budget overruns, and more recently we have seen the Assembly Government being asked to bail out the Wales Millennium Centre and the National Botanical Gardens ( again!). I am a frequent and enthusiastic visitor to both but we have to be wary of this practice of rushing in with
extra money after a long period of building up operational losses.  Our National Library doesn’t do it nor do our National Museums nor, for that matter, does our NHS. What marks these other projects out is that they are new and they are iconic. We need an arm’s length way of handling these bodies with women and men of proven commercial experience representing the government and the taxpayer on the boards, scrutinising monthly management ccounts and ensuring that bad news is addressed early on and not buried for
short term political reasons
 
These are just some of the areas that we are currently looking at.